


A Happy Family

by seitsemannen



Category: GOT7
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Jackson, Jackson wants a family, M/M, Related to Markson on the Australian leg of their 2017 tour, Short & Sweet, What else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seitsemannen/pseuds/seitsemannen
Summary: Jackson has been visibly upset for the last day or two, but Mark doesn't know why, and the fans have started to notice. He doesn't, however, expect Jackson to take it up backstage before their last fanmeet, where anyone could overhear them.





	A Happy Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KoreabooKitty (Koreabookitty)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koreabookitty/gifts).



> Happy birthday Katie! I was supposed to write just a tiny snippet with the prompt "happy family" for your birthday but like me and my stories usually do, it got a little out of hand, so I couldn't comfortably just post it on Twitter and did instead so here. I hope you enjoy it, although it is less fluff and happiness and more painful stuff :)
> 
>  **EDIT [17/05/21]:** Wanted to make the word count even, so I filled in some things to get it from 1,111 to 1,500 :)

"Mark, do you think we can ever have a happy family?"

Mark snapped awake from where he had been almost dozing off on the sofa backstage. They were on the last fanmeet of the Australian leg of their tour, waiting for the technical soundcheck to be completed so that they could do the full soundcheck with all the seven of them, so Mark had out of greed and desperation taken the opportunity of maybe having ten minutes of spare time to sleep, like the wise man he was. Jackson's words were a sudden disruption to the moment – not because Mark hadn't known that something was wrong, because he had. Jackson had completely ignored him the day before, but Mark had scratched that up to general exhaustion, and Jackson feeling down for once again being away from his cherished mother on her birthday. Mark didn’t expect to be completely right about Jackson’s moods at any given moment though, so it wasn’t that he would be especially surprised to learn that Jackson was upset because of a different reason than he thought, no, that was not it.

Rather, what was sudden was that Jackson would speak here, in the dressing room, which was considerably more in public than they usually preferred to have their serious conversations. As a saving grace or probably due to Jackson’s careful calculation there was no one close enough to hear the words, and they were spoken in Mandarin anyway, lessening the chances of anyone else around them understanding him. Still, they had agreed to keep their relationship under wraps when under the watchful eyes of strangers or in the reach of a camera's zoom, keeping anything that couldn't be explained as friendship behind closed doors. So, it was surprising that Jackson would be saying something like this, here, instead of back at their hotel or something. However, that only meant that Jackson deemed it so urgent and important that it couldn’t wait longer, that it was affecting Jackson so much that it needed to be talked over right now, so there was no way Mark would be belittling the matter even if he thought it was silly, which he definitely didn’t.

Jackson was sitting next to Mark on the sofa, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and hands clasped together, staring down at them with a dark and tired look in his eyes, which those outside of the seven of them would probably interpret only as nervousness or exhaustion, but Mark knew was something else; desperation and confusion about something personal rather than any sort of stage-related fright. Glancing around to make sure that there was no one nearby or even looking anywhere their way, Mark sat up and wrapped an arm around Jackson's shoulders, hand gently cupping the younger's neck and leaned close, speaking in a low, soft voice that no one else would be able to hear, even if there was anyone paying attention to them.

“What do you mean? Of course we can!”

Jackson’s dark brown eyes were full of water as they rose to met Mark’s, and Mark wanted nothing more than to pull the younger against his chest and hold him close, whispering him soft words of reassurance and love until the tears in those eyes would be gone. But he couldn’t, there were staff members both local and theirs passing through the room every now and then, and exposing them was a risk he simply couldn’t take. So, instead of wrapping Jackson in his arms, what Mark could do was only bring his other hand to rest over Jackson’s clenched fists, keeping up the appearance of a friend comforting the other, even though his insides were screaming to do more, to eradicate Jackson’s fears now.

Jackson’s voice was shaky, higher than usual, and Mark could feel the slight tremble of his shoulders under his arm. “Can we? Can we really? It would be a different matter if we weren’t celebrities, weren’t idols, but like this, is it really possible for us to have a happy family some day? Adopt children and be able to raise them normally when our lives are like this, under constant scrutiny and judgement?”

“We haven’t even talked about getting married or getting an apartment together and you’re already talking about children?” Mark couldn’t help but let out a nervous laughter, the words stumbling from his lips as they had caught him off guard. He knew he shouldn’t have spoken so quickly, knowing Jackson was in a habit of taking words too seriously or interpreting them as telling him he wasn’t good enough if Mark wasn’t careful. Jackson would misunderstand Mark’s antsiness towards the subject as dismissal, when in fact he was just mildly freaking out because he hadn’t known that Jackson saw their relationship as serious enough as to think about children and the sort, so Mark had to come up with words quicker than he liked to, so that he could fix what he had said, make Jackson understand it how he had meant it.

“I mean, just, I hadn’t realized you would want children? And with me?” Mark stammered, before continuing, “I mean, I’d want to? With you? If you’d want to? Not right now, I mean, but like, later, for sure.”

Jackson’s eyes were so beautiful up close, his lashes wet from blinking away the excess moisture in his eyes and Mark wanter to press kisses on top of his eyelids, and once again, couldn’t. He loved this beautiful man so much it hurt. It was Jackson's eyes that Mark had first felt drawn to, the kindness and joy in them that had sparked his interest and the intensity and wisdom in their depth that had Mark falling in love with the younger man. Mark had felt from the start drawn to Jackson like a moth to the flame, but he had learned that very much unlike a flame, Jackson didn't hurt him, but rather brought so much vital brightness into his life. Mark had been overwhelmed with pure happiness when one day, Jackson had confessed to him in a flurry of words, that made it almost seem more like an accident than attentional. He felt so lucky to be able to call Jackson his.

“Yeah, I would. With you.” Jackson’s expression was earnest, his peachy bottom lip sticking out just a little in a pout, and Mark was glad he was so serious about this. However, the slight happy flutter of butterflies in his stomach was still overpowered by the need to make Jackson’s worries about this subject go away, the best he could.

Mark hesitated only for a moment, chewing the side of his lip as he weighed his words, wanting to express his opinion and expectations as honestly as he could while still being comforting. “I do think we can, Jackson, I really do. Not now, for sure, but in ten, fifteen years, I think we can. The society is getting more and more accepting towards these things, and besides, there are a lot of older idols that are able to have families and raise their kids in peace if they choose so. Of course it’s not exactly the same it would be if we weren’t celebrities, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t be happy, that we couldn’t have a family and our children couldn’t lead a happy life. We can, and we will, if we want to and put effort in it.”

Mark was glad to see Jackson’s expression calm into a more thoughtful one as he mulled Mark’s words over in his head, and Mark squeezed Jackson’s hands lightly, hoping his words and the little actions he could take in this situation were reassurance enough. He felt like his chest was about to burst, the affection he felt towards Jackson becoming almost unbearable in this moment as he had whom he thought to be the love of his life confess that he would want children together – that he would want to be together long enough to want children together – and the slow and small smile that finally spread on Jackson’s lips was so beautiful, so perfect that Mark wished he could take a picture with his eyes and preserve this image forever on his retinas.

“Okay”, Jackson said simply, his voice trusting and eyes brighter again. “I believe you, so we will. Later, when the time is right.”

And Mark couldn’t kiss him right there and then like he wanted to, but he did in the short moment the seven of them were left alone backstage before the stage, even though it made the maknaes eww and tell them to get a room. Jackson’s smile thereafter was worth it, and so was the difference of how Jackson acted towards him on stage compared to the previous fanmeet, like night and day, and so the fans were pleased.

But like always, the most important part was that Jackson was happy, because that meant that Mark was, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, if you did, do leave kudos ♥


End file.
